


Unmade

by Aww_Shiiip



Category: Avengers
Genre: AoU fix-it, Attempting to fix endgame and aou, Endgame Fix-It, F/M, clint is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 14:25:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19378543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aww_Shiiip/pseuds/Aww_Shiiip
Summary: Despite winning the war and getting his family back, Clint isn’t handling Natasha’s death well. He can’t sleep without reliving Vormir and is barely living while awake. And only Wanda knows, after taking a look into his mind.





	Unmade

**Author's Note:**

> Hey. So I haven’t written in years but Endgame got me needing some closure so here’s this.

It was raining. He sat at the wooden kitchen table and watched, with a hollow expression, as it pelted the window. He was empty save for the whiskey he drowned in every night. Was it still night or had he gone into morning? No, it was definitely night. Laura had stopped letting him drink before 5 o’clock, after the first month. It’s been 6 now. 6 months of guilt. 6 months of an ache he didn’t know existed. One that settled heavier, each day, in his chest. The lump in his throat had taken up permanent residency in his body. He can’t remember what it felt like to not have it there. The whiskey burned going down, and each time he wondered if it’d ever burn enough for him to be able to breathe again. After tossing back his fourth? Fifth drink? He swallowed it slowly, prolonging the numbness, hoping that it’d burn the images of her out of him head. Closing his eyes, he could see her lying broken at the bottom of that god forsaken cliff. So he poured himself another. Or, at least, he tried to. He found himself grasping at air and looked up to see Laura holding the bottle. Her face held a look of concern, an expression that seemed to be a permanent feature. Another wave of guilt rolled through him. She died so he could have this. Have his family back. And what was he doing? Drowning in cheap liquor every night.   
“It’s after five..”   
She didn’t look amused and put the bottle away before slowly sitting at the table and resting her hands on his.   
“Clint”, she began and hesitated before continuing.   
“Clint. It’s been six months. I know you miss her. We all miss her. But she wouldn’t want to see you doing this to yourself. She would want you to move on.”   
He knew she was trying to help. She had been patient with his sorry ass since she came back and was probably tired of his wallowing. But he had, had five? Six? It didn’t matter drinks, resulting in his response. He chuckled humorlessly, low and ominous.   
“Yeah? Is that what you know? You know what she would and wouldn’t want?”   
He stood and stumbled slightly.   
“You didn’t know her. Not really. Not like me.”   
She looked at him sadly before he turned, stumbling his way up the stairs to bed. He always dreaded this part. The moment when his eyes closed. What he would see. Her face is what always appeared first. Green piercing eyes softened by the knowledge of impending death. Then his hand grasping hers but no matter how tight he held, she’d always fall. She always die. And the image of her lying there would imbed itself into his irises for the rest of the day. But the alcohol was doing its job. He barely made it to the bed before passing out and succumbing to the inevitable.   
———————-  
He jolted awake and was instantly on the defense.   
‘Where am I?’   
He peered around the room. It was then he realized that he was on a couch.   
‘I could’ve sworn I went to bed last night.’   
He threw the blanket into a heap, next to him and looked around. His defenses rose once again once he realized that it wasn’t his house. Just as he was about to go into full blown panic, a voice cut through his internal battle.   
“Finally decided to join the living, I see.”   
The voice had him stopping everything. Closing his eyes tight he repeated a short mantra of ‘she’s gone’, ‘you saw her die’. His mind was playing tricks on him. It had to be.   
“Hellooo? Earth to Clint. You still asleep?” The voice sounded amused and was moving closer. Only when he felt the dip in the couch, did he risk a glance. She was there. Her hair was pulled to the side in a braid, her red hair still melting into blonde. Her body was swimming in an oversized ratty sweatshirt that he didn’t even know she owned and a simple pit of black leggings. Her attention shifted from him to the tv, holding a cup of coffee? Tea? To her lips. She gestured to his cup on the coffee table, but he couldn’t move. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he was even breathing at this point. All he could do was stare and take it the proof of her life. He held onto every breath she took. She finally turned when he continued to stare and raised an eyebrow.   
“Geez Clint. Take a picture, why don’t you.”  
“You’re dead.” That took her by surprise but only for a moment. A wry smile made its way on her face.  
“Oh I am? Guess I should put my two weeks in.” She winked at him and turned back to the news. When he didn’t react, she looked at him again and saw he was serious. Placing her mug down and turning off the tv, she gave her full attention to him. He couldn’t breathe.   
“You’re dead.” She rolled her eyes.   
“You sound like a broken record.” She had hoped her lite jabs would shake him from whatever was haunting him, but his expression remained. With a sigh, she placed her hands on his very much so like Laura had done earlier. But her hands seemed a little warmer. He blamed it on the coffee.   
“Clint, it was a bad dream. This was a tough job but we got through it. We always do. It was just a dream. Look, see?” She squeezed his hands.   
“You feel that? I’m here, Clint. I’m right here.” His eyes began to water, and then his body was wracked with sobs. She was on him in a second, pulling him close to her. He reached around her like he was drowning and she was his lifeboat. She held him back just as tightly, whispering words of comfort in Russian. ‘It was just a dream’, he thought. ‘A terrible, terrible dream, but only a dream’. Once he calmed down enough to talk, he still had her tight in his arms as he mumbled into her now damp shoulder.   
“It was so real. I couldn’t save you. I tried so hard to, Nat. I tried but you still died. I watched you die again and again and there was nothing I could do.” She stroked a hand in his hair and that action itself almost set him off, again. For a while, they just sat in silence. The coffee was cold by now and storm clouds had begun to roll in but the rumbles were more comforting now than before. Everything was just a dream. He felt something drip on his cheek and thought she had been crying as well. Except, Natasha never cries. He pulled back, concerned.   
“Natasha?”She wasn’t crying. She was bleeding.   
“Shit! Nat, what happened? Why didn’t you say you were hurt?”   
He was up in an instant looking for the first aid kit. He turned back to ask her where it was only to find her looking back at him sadly. He started desperately pressing paper towels to her head but they were saturated within seconds no matter how much he used.   
“We need to get you to the hospital. This isn’t a normal amount of blood loss even for a head wound.” Just as he was pulling her up, she halted his actions. He wasn’t about to play the ‘I’m too cool for doctors’, game with her. He just got her back and wasn’t about to lose her because of her bullheadedness.   
“It’s okay.” He looked at her with a sudden feeling of dread.   
“Let me go.”  
“No!” He gripped her wrist tighter trying to pull her towards the door. He wretched it open and without looking, pulled them both through it. And then he was falling. It felt like he was falling forever until he was suddenly jerked to a stop. His one hand grabbed at his waist and found the wire he knew was imbedded into the cliff. He knew what would be in his other hand and he gripped tighter.   
“Clint.” Tears stung his eyes because he knew how this ended yet he still begged anyway.   
“Please. Please no. Please. Natasha.”   
“It’s okay.”  
“No!” He screamed and sobbed because it wasn’t okay. It would never be okay.   
“Let me go.” On impulse, he gripped tighter but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. And he watched her push away from him and plummet to her death once more.   
———————  
The next time he woke up, he was in his room and his cheeks were wet. Laura was on her knees staring at him with worry and a little fear. The clock read 3:30 AM.   
“Did I wake you?” She nodded slowly. After the first few times, she decided lying to him was pointless. It’s not like he didn’t know she was. He began to get up.   
“You don’t have to-“ she tried but he cut her off.   
“Early bird gets the worm.” He made his way downstairs to start the coffee pot. He leaned his hands on the counter and dropped his head, as he waiting for his liquid fuel to finish.   
The dream still haunted him. It was so real. He believed it. He could’ve saved her. If he only grasped her hand tighter. Grasped it in a bone-breaking grip. Bones could be fixed. If only he was stronger. If only his pain tolerance was higher. If only—his self deprecation was cut short by the sound of the door closing. He looked up to find Lila staring at him like a deer caught in the headlights.   
“Lila?”   
He took in her appearance. She was wearing a black dress, stockings, and old converse while holding her high heels. Her make-up was done, albeit a bit smeared, and her hair was mussed up. The realization dawned on him.   
“The fuck??”   
Once getting over her shock of seeing him, she huffed out a sigh before breezing past him.   
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?? Where were you?? Why aren’t you in bed??”   
She turned to glare at him from her place at the stairs.   
“Oh, so now you care? Because you haven’t ever since we got home.”   
He stared at her shocked before letting his anger take over.   
“You are thirteen goddamn years old, Lila! You are too young to be sneaking out to god knows where dressed like that!”   
She went back in the kitchen with narrowed eyes, heels forgotten at the base of the stairs.   
“Aunt Tasha would’ve let me!”   
It was a low blow and she knew it. It had him leaning on the counter for support. After getting his bearings he spoke lowly.   
“Aunt Tasha would have your window barred and door locked on the outside until you graduated and even then you’d be lucky if she let you out. Now go to your room. You’re grounded until further notice.”   
She stared at him with defiance and her eyes a little glassy before scoffing and turning, making her way up the stairs briskly. He let out a sigh and rubbed his eyes roughly with his two fingers. The coffee pot went off then. He drank the bitter liquid in silence, the ache in his chest numbed briefly from his exhaustion. When did he last have a restful night’s sleep? The silence was ringing in his ears, the low buzz of his hearing aids deafening. He smirked humorlessly at his thought.   
‘Deafening. Bu-dum-tis.’   
He finished his cup of coffee before taking his second and a piece of toast out to the barn where he had a punching bag set up. He put the coffee down, the toast covering it, before turning the old radio on. It was staticky at first before he adjusted it to a station where the music was mostly coherent. He spent an hour letting out his frustrations of his rebelling daughter, the guilt towards his wife and family, his hatred towards himself, before he finally collapsed. His knuckles had began to bleed through the tape wrapped around his hand. Old blisters splitting open again. Panting harshly, he hauled himself up and over to where the hose was. After drinking and rinsing his face and knuckles, he made his way back over to his lukewarm coffee and toast. He sat against the old truck he refused to get rid of and listened to the music playing through the static. 

‘I’m lying on the moon.   
My dear, I’ll be there soon’ 

As he listened, he realized that he had heard the song before but couldn’t place where. He furrowed his eyebrows together in thought. 

‘It’s a quiet and starry place.   
Times we’re swallowed up in space  
we’re here a million miles away.’

The pain in his head started out dull and he paid no mind to it. Headaches had become an almost unavoidable occurrence with his drinking and lack of sleep. What took him off guard was the sudden stab at the side of his head. The feeling was so overwhelming, he dropped the rest of his coffee and corner piece of toast, in favor to grab at his head. 

‘There’s things I wish I knew.   
There’s nothing I’d keep from you.’ 

It was getting worse. He curled into himself, grabbing his head, images swimming around him.   
‘I’m dying.’ He thought. And despite the agony, he felt relief at that thought. 

‘It’s a dark and shiny place.   
But with you, my dear, I’m safe

Dark spots were forming in front of his eyes and the music was becoming drowned out by the blood rushing in his ears. He began digging his hearing aids out but only managed one before finally passing out. Before the darkness surrounded him, he thought he saw a flicker of red, then hanging lights against a night sky. 

and we’re a million miles away.’

**Author's Note:**

> The song at the end is called “The Moon Song” and apparently Scarlett Johansson sings it. I was going off the Hound+Fox version, though, in this.


End file.
